The Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary

It will surely be the best place to watch the complete Starlink infinity grid perforate the night sky fully in all directions with a perfectly aligned quilt of dots.

Well that's kind of cool to log in and see on HN. This is right next door to where I live in Bend.

A few suggestions in that part of Oregon:

* Close to Bend, you can visit the Pine Mountain Observatory, which is open to the public in the summer. https://pmo.uoregon.edu/visiting/ - at 6000 feet, and far from anything, the views of the night sky even without telescopes are amazing. And the staff there point the scopes at interesting sights and explain what they are.

* Further out, Steens mountain and that area is incredible. It's one of the most remote parts of the US outside of Alaska.

* The Christmas Valley area has a lot of interesting things like Fort Rock, Crack-in-the-Ground, Hole-in-the-Ground and the sand dunes.

I didn't read all the comments so perhaps this is already answered? I'm curious why this is the largest when you've got massive land areas in the Midwest where very few people live.

As an Oregonian I'm both proud and surprised. Nice work to all involved.

A few years back I camped out on the Alvord Playa in this part of Oregon on a clear, moonless, summer night: it was spectacular!

I've been to quite a few remote dark sky sites, but this place was something else.

Later that night a storm rolled in and I had to get off the Playa due to the strong winds and blowing sand and dust.

I ended up sleeping in my Jeep next to a power substation since I only had a half tank of gas and that wasn't enough to get me to the nearest open gas station. At this time in Oregon even the rural gas stations were full service only so I had to wait until morning when the store at Fields Station opened up and I could gas up and get back home.

It was a memorable trip.

curious how or why australia doesn’t feature in this given their extensive unpopulated outback seems relevant.

To fully experience the night sky there is no substitute for getting up to altitude. Most of the atmosphere that really interferes with the view is way down low. Try a moonless night at 8000 to 11000 feet elevation in the eastern Sierra or Yosemite high country to really blow your mind. Boss level is a summit bivy during a new moon meteor shower with a close friend or lover.

Unless I am missing the distinction, Oregon outback us being protected as a sanctuary whereas Central Australia, Kazakhstan plains, Hokkaido in Japan etc. are larger but without any guarantees of dark sky protection (?). Please correct me if this understanding is wrong, because I saw some other HNers raising this point.

Just curious, how does one get to the middle of the Dark Sky Sanctuary to do some astronomy stuff without driving a car and ruining everyone's astronomy with the headlights?

What about the (happy) isles of Oceania? The night skies there are nigh unreal. I've never seen the milky way like that before.

I would recommend anyone who has the means to, to go to Raja Ampat near Papua, specifically by boat. You're in the middle of open water in Indonesian seas with nothing around you for quite a while, and the amount of stars you can see in the night sky is simply mindblowing. We didn't even need lights turned on to navigate around the ship/islands, it was crazy to witness

What does the Sanctuary part mean? Are there increased light restrictions, or is it mostly a "put a name on what's already happening"-type thing?

I drove across the Simpson Desert in Central Australia. 600km of absolutely nothing. No buildings, no water, just two sandy tire tracks through the desert [1]. The stars were utterly breathtaking, the milky way was so bright it kept me awake at night in my swag (ground tent). I took this photo as a single 8s exposure on just a sony A7iii [2].

Then a few months later I drove the Canning Stock Route, the world's most remote road [3]. In 1,050 miles over 10 days I never saw another vehicle or person on the track. I went into one aboriginal community to buy gas, it was the only "lightbulb" I saw in ten days. I have not really looked it up, but I suspect I was about as far from a lightbulb as you can drive to on planet earth, and the stars every night were utterly incredible. I stayed up way later than I should have night after night trying to take it all in. The Canning is in Western Australia, a state that is approaching twice as big as Alaska.[4]

Dark skies are awesome!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmJKXDdrvcI

[2] https://www.instagram.com/p/CersLuLBfCz/

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UR6agkRbT4

[4] http://www.comparea.org/AU_WA+US_AK

What about North Korea?

Oregon is beautiful. For the Canadian “east is least” crowd there’s the Torrance barrens dark sky park 2 hours north of Toronto with impressive night skies. But, like every attraction around the GTA it gets very crowded and many don’t respect the code of darkness which has lead to same nasty verbal fights.

https://www.torrancebarrens.com/dark-sky

A plug here for the Oregon Star Party if you want to experience what these dark skies are about. You are at about 5,000 feet in the Ochoco National Forest. It keeps getting pushed earlier in the summer trying to get in before the western North America fire season is in full swing. which is sub-optimal for long nights, but the high desert flowers make up for allot.

Only affiliation is I been going for a couple of decades.

https://oregonstarparty.org/

The progress Dark Sky International (and friends) has made is very encouraging.

I have been extremely pessimistic about the dark sky movement making progress at all given how desperately fearful of any darkness the areas around me seem to be (daylight-bright streetlights, storefront signs to rival Vegas, etc.)

Truly dark skies are magical. I'm so glad they'll be around at least a bit longer.

Kielder Forest in the north of England is another spot that’s got Dark Sky status[1].

We stayed in a place with an A frame roof that opens into a V shape so you can lie in bed and watch the stars, which was pretty great[2].

[1]: https://www.visitkielder.com/play/discover/dark-skies

[2]: https://www.visitkielder.com/play/discover/skyden

If you’re wondering where this is, here’s a website with map (also PDF version): https://www.southernoregon.org/dark-skies/oregon-outback-dar...

I went hiking in Yosemite/John Muir for a week. The night sky was something I hadn’t experienced before.

I didn’t bring a tent so I slept under the night sky.

I remember waking up and thinking “aha, that’s why it’s called the Milky Way”.

Having been to the boundary waters a few times - I can saw the sky is absolutely amazing at night.

I wouldn’t give up artificial light for a second, but everyone should experience the night sky as our ancestors saw it

The skies there are brilliant! But that also means it is one of the most remote areas of the US. There is very little but high desert and ramshackle cattle ranches in all directions. There is a reason that they named this county “Malheur” (it’s the French word for ‘misfortune’). I drive through a part of this area every couple of months and it’s agonizing, but on the rare occasion that I’m solo and driving it at night I always make time to stop, turn the lights off, and look up.

I think those are called dark-sky preserves? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark-sky_preserve

    A 2.5 million-acre swath of southern Oregon has been named the largest Dark Sky Sanctuary in the world.

    The Radio Quiet Zone, centred on Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, comprises:

* An Outer Zone from a 70km to 150km radius; and

* Coordination zones from 70km up to 260km radius (depending on frequency).

https://www.atnf.csiro.au/projects/askap/ARQZWA.html

Given the absence of townsites and infrastructure (aside from unmanned radio telescopes and cosmic microwave detectors, etc) it is pretty "dark" at night (aside from the overwhelming glare of the milky way in the southern hemisphere) - it's just not an "official Dark Sky Sanctuary".

For those interested: a global Light Pollution Map

https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/

Related tangent: last summer I got the chance to spend a week at Medawisla -- the Appalachian Mountain Club -managed lodge and cabin and dark sky park in Maine, on the edge of 100-Mile Wilderness. Highest possible recommendation.

I can't imagine what the stars used to look like. It must have been amazing.

I’m lucky enough to live somewhere that gives me regular, clear and dark views of the cosmos. I think it changes you as a human.